#chidder

i tried to visualize mental pricing here, but i'm not sure if using an empty number from the calculator display instead of specific numbers is good idea, it just looks like 8. so i need some feedback about it

“Gods, you’re warm,” Chidder said into Teppic’s hair, his chest – which was broader and, Teppic had noticed in recent months, somewhat hairier than Teppic’s own – pressing up against Teppic’s back, and one of his arms drawing tightly around Teppic’s own chest. Teppic almost struggled, but then he took a moment’s pause. Chidder was quite warm himself, actually. His body, beefy and heavy like a tom cat’s, even as it retained a wiry grace, was different to Teppic’s own, which was leaner, and more compact. Even if Teppic was taller[2], Chidder was bigger, and, apparently, a good deal better at retaining some of the heat in that big body of his. “Are you wearing your socks?”

“I was cold,” Teppic mumbled.

“Yeah, but can you sleep like that, Tep?”

“I managed it before you woke me up, didn’t I?” Teppic demanded, his voice a bit sharper than he meant for it to be, but he let his hand touch against Chidder’s arm where it wrapped around him, feeling the hair that grew there. Chidder was hairy. The royal family of Djelibeybi, of course, had body hair, but it was much sparser and lighter, and Teppic only grew thick patches of it at his crotch, on his head, and a little in his armpits, but Chidder? Chidder was like a bear. He was only going to get hairier, he had said to Arthur when the other boy had brought it up in the school sauna, but Teppic hardly knew how: touching his arm, now, he felt a veritable forest of surprisingly soft hair along Chidder’s arm.

“Kick ‘em off,” Chidder murmured. His breath was hot on the back of Teppic’s neck.

“I’ll kick you off,” Teppic said.

“Well, you haven’t yet,” Chidder pointed out, but his retort was playful in tone, and Teppic caught his toe in the ankle of the sock, reluctantly dragging it off. “You can put it against my calf.”

“I’m not having a calf in the bed as well,” Teppic muttered, even as he did so, and sighed at the warmth of Chidder’s hirsutely carpeted leg, radiating through his sole and making his freezing toes sting with abrupt heat.

“Just a kid then,” Chidder murmured, and Teppic heard his smug little laugh as Teppic shoved both his feet up against Chidder’s calves, shoving up his pyjama bottoms in order to reach. “Feeling warmer?”

“Mmm,” Teppic hummed, his eye closing, and he let his fingers curve around Chidder’s wrist. It occurred to him, in that lazy and yet utterly comprehensive way ideas sometimes do, when one is half-asleep, that this was very unusual. It was, perhaps, even a dream, although Teppic wasn’t sure about that: Chidder’s body felt far too wonderfully warm against his own, and he didn’t know that he’d make it quite so pleasant, were he dreaming it up. Young men weren’t meant to warm the beds of princes – not to actually warm them, anyway—

The thought zapped Teppic somewhat awake, and he coughed.

“I’ve been thinking,” Chidder said.

“That’s novel,” Teppic said.

“Naughty,” Chidder purred in his ear, squeezing him across his chest, and Teppic felt a strangely electric heat run down his spine. “No, no, I’ve been thinking, Tep. We should have sex.”

There was a long pause as Teppic took this in, wide-eyed in the darkness, very, very aware of Chidder’s size, his even breathing, his warmth. “Now?” he asked, finally.

“No, not now,” Chidder murmured, nosing against the back of his ear and making Teppic’s eyes flutter shut. Teppic thought of Chidder, going home with girls – going home with women – at dances, charming them, being charming— “It’s far too cold for that sort of thing, Tep. I’d need to undress you, and then get you all wet and slippery to play with. You’d freeze, afterward.”

The words wet and slippery, not heretofore words that had been filed under “sexually appealing” in Teppic’s mind, were now blaring as if the words had been written in fire on the inside of his skull – and, quite possibly, on the inside of his belly, where another blaze was coming abruptly to life.

“But… sometime,” Chidder said.

The cogs that made up Teppic’s mind had been somewhat overlubricated by Chidder’s warm voice in his ear, and were struggling with logical thought, in the moment. Visions of Chidder in various situations wet and/or slippery were making themselves known to him in ways they had never done before, and Chidder was rather rudely taking the place of men and women who, in previous fantasies, had been quite faceless.

“Is this, er,” Teppic began, his tongue feeling clumsy, fat, and stupid behind his teeth, “sort of thing, where you want to teach me how to be seductive? As a… a skill, or something?”

“Not really,” Chidder said, his tone musing. “I just thought it might be rather fun. Besides, I hear it’s rather nice, when you do it with someone you actually love.”

“Love?” Teppic repeated, his voice somewhat choked.

“Well,” Chidder adjusted, not sounding bothered at all, his confidence never faltering, “I suppose love is the wrong word… but I rather like you, at times. I think I could come to like you quite a bit more, lying down.”

“I’m not feeling very seduced, Chidder,” Teppic said, surprised by the affront in his own tone.

“Whatever do I want to seduce you for?”

“To have sex with me! It’s all very well seducing women, Chiddy, but I’m rather offended if you don’t think I’m worth the effort, and you can just swan into my bed, all warm, and propose sex as if you’re asking me to lend you a fiver.”

“Would you lend me a fiver?” Chidder asked, sounding amused, and Teppic elbowed him in his flat – but comparatively soft, not like Teppic’s, which was very hard indeed – stomach. Chidder grunted in pain. “You’re not a woman, Teppic,” he said reproachfully.

“No, I’m a prince,” Teppic retorted. “I shan’t just be— Just be, sort of, had.”

“Well, you’re not having me,” Chidder said. “I’m bigger than you.”

“What? That’s not what I meant,” Teppic said, feeling a hot flush burn in his cheeks. He knew, of course, how it worked, theoretically, but he’d never put much thought into the practicality of it… And he’d be damned if he’d allow such thoughts to distract him now. “No, I meant— I shall be seduced, Chidder, if it’s all the same to you.”

Chidder exhaled against the back of his neck, and then wriggled closer, nosing past the locks of Teppic’s hair, although he was, frankly, getting rather frustrated with growing it out, and was rather close to cutting it all short again. He was especially amenable to that sort of prospect, if it meant Chidder’s mouth was going to drag against the small of his neck like that.

“Fine,” Chidder said, and kissed him there. “I’ll seduce you. Very demanding, for a prince.”

“Commanding.”

“Come, is it?”

Teppic snorted, and Chidder laughed, rich and honeyed against his hair, and then he went relaxed and quiet, pulling Teppic in against him. Teppic’s feet weren’t cold at all, anymore, and Chidder was very warm. He turned over in his place, and shoved Chidder onto his beck, so that he could use him as a pillow.

He was a very good pillow, and better than that, Chidder’s hand was stroking idly up and down Teppic’s back.

He was asleep a lot faster, this time around.

[1] He had informed Chidder that he didn’t celebrate the holiday, but Chidder had assured him, with his typical self-confidence, that that was hardly the point.